A Festival, A Park and Pizza-Sized Spatters of Bird Poo

May 1992
A Festival, A Park and Pizza-Sized Spatters of Bird Poo
By Bob Coskrey

Dear Muffie,

You won’t believe what’s happening in Charleston. As you know, we’ve reached that time of year when we have more males with ponytails than females, when there are more parties going on than during deb season, and where half the people you meet at the parties have a last name ending in a vowel and speak with such heavy accents, it’s like living in a foreign country. Yes, before you know it, it will be time for the Charleston Spoleto Festival again. Or “Spoletorama” or “Arts are Us,” as I like to call it.

During the next few months, our once hidden, beautiful city will be attacked by a group of dilettantish carpet-baggers pushing something called “site specific art.” According to the tenets of their movement, they have the artistic freedom to do whatever the hell they want. This year we’re liable to see the old Exchange Building painted Miami pink, John C. Calhoun’s statue dressed in drag, or St. Michael’s bells may toll “Mood Indigo” every hour on the hour. Actually, Gian Carlo Menotti, the festivals fabled founder, is not really happy with this group either, so maybe we won’t be avant garded too closely.

But anyway, that’s not the big news. The local headlines are that the artists and the environmentalists have declared war on one another. Why, I’m sure you’re asking yourself, Muffie, would these two normally aligned groups be fighting one another? Have the artists been spilling their oils into the marshes while painting our tidal vistas? Have the environmentalists become so omnipresent that they keep popping up in the artists’ line of vision as they try to paint the landscapes? Neither of the above, old girl.

All the controversy revolved around a bird called the yellow crowned night heron. It seems that these poor creatures, after having their normal habitat destroyed by Hugo, not to mention a tidal wave of developers, have started nesting every year in—of all places—Washington Square. Yes, that very same Washington Square where our nannies took us to play many decades ago.

The artists use the park to showcase their work during Spoleto, but they complain that the propagating “herons from hell” are interfering with their livelihood by continually bombarding them, their canvases, their customers and the entire park with pizza-sized spatters of bird poo. They also lament that the area frequently becomes more foul smelling than my Uncle Goodie’s fur-lined bedroom slippers in late August.

They want the city to run the birds out.

The environmentalists, on the other hand, staunchly affirm that the birds were residents of the Lowcountry before the artists were, and that the artists have some nerve treating wildlife so crudely, since it provides the inspiration for many of their creations.

Our sagacious mayor, caught in the middle of this ornithological imbroglio, is attempting a prudent solution by filling the park’s trees with plastic replicas of owls, the heron’s bête noir. He claims this will only discourage some of the birds from taking up residence. I guess he means that some of the bird-brained members of the group will catch on to the game after bees begin building hives in the owls, a near-sighted sparrow builds a nest on one, or some wild-ass kids eventually shoot them to pieces with BB guns.

Of course, the environmentalists don’t like this plan, because they feel that eventually the herons will be driven out of Charleston altogether, even ending up in Myrtle Beach, where blinded and disoriented by the glare of neon, they will endanger their existence even further by trying to take up residence in the gears of various amusement park rides or miniature golf course props.

The artists, equally recalcitrant, feel that the herons who remain in spite of the bogus owls will still effect serious damage, and their fears have been further inflamed by a swirling rumor that some of the herons may have emigrated from near the Savannah River Nuclear Plant and that mutant 70-pound heronodactyls are a possibility in the very near future.

Muffie, we’re really getting sick of all this tacky public bickering. It’s no North Charlestonish. So last week at the Junior League meeting, some of the girls, you know Sissie, Bitsie, Ditsie, Boopsie, and the rest came up with some really nifty ideas to end this tawdry altercation to the satisfaction of both parties.

The major theme of their suggestions is one of compromise; after all, these SOBs have become involuntary experts in the art of compromise from their efforts to control the hordes of tank-topped, tube-socked tourists who leer through their iron gates and trample on their secret gardens.

Heron dropping art.

It could be the foundation of a whole new genre, beginning with the heron-dropping sculpture. I mean, here you’ve got this endless supply of media to work with. TI’s right there in front of you, so why not take advantage of it? Oh, you might need to mix in a little Lysol disinfectant. And, if the stuff looks like it needs a little more body, some cheese for the birds.

The artists could also introduce “natural painting,” just like some artists have let elephants and chimps create with paints, you could set up a horizontal canvas in the park and let the herons have at it. The artists could even feed them food injected with food coloring, though that would, of course, sully the art’s organicity. I think the “site specific” group could really “get into” this, if you know what I mean.

There are also practical possibilities for the heron’s gift. And maybe that’s how we should all think of it—as a gift from one of God’s creatures. And, of course, when someone gives you a gift, especially God’s emissary, you accept it graciously, you don’t insult or embarrass him—even if he’s from Berkeley County.

So one very practical idea that we’re sure Mayor Joe will love is to use this stuff to full city potholes. Heck, if it works, with all the potholes this place has, we’ll need to bring in even more herons. For that matter, if this stuff is as hard as they say it is, we may be able to build the new Cooper River Bridge with it.

Another mayor-pleasing idea has a culinary twist. This stuff could be a great delicacy. Who knows? We love our oysters, don’t we? And we know what they eat. It would depend on the birds’ diet, I would think. Say you feed them she-crab soup, benne-seed cookies, shrimp and hominy and other Lowcountry delectables, maybe you get something really extraordinary. Of course, we would have to find people willing to sample it. What we would do is take a big bowl of it into one of those country western/clubs on Dorchester Road and present it with some Ritz crackers as something like Charlie Daniels salsa or Elvis Dip. If they don’t like it, somebody will raise hell and a big fight will break out. If they like it, then the city can patent it and sell it as a Charleston Spoleto delicacy, perhaps naming it something like Pate de L’Arbor Truffles (Tree Truffle Pate). I realize, of course, that our taste test subject are, perhaps, two or three evolutionary links behind the average Spoletan, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

Muffie Prioleau thought of this one. (Can you believe it? They have three Muffies in the league.) It’s a children’s game to be called Lovin’ Spoonful. You give out 500 spoons to 500 children and they run around the park trying to catch heron poo before it his anything. Anyone caught scrapping it up will be disqualified. And a one-minute, time-out penalty will be assigned to those who catch any pigeon poo. The first one to full up a 16-ounce cup wins. Wholesome recreation for the kids and a fun way to keep the park clean.

Another very original idea which espouses a quid pro quo approach for the environmentalist is to fill the park with plastic statues of art critics with faces that look like Jesse Helms. This also might have a beneficial secondary effect of enabling some of the artists to empathize with the herons.

We were reminded of that unpleasant national news coverage given our lovely city during the horse diaper dilemma which, of course, led us to consider the same solution for the herons. This idea was initially discounted because we felt no one would want to perform the gruesome task of changing the diapers after catching the birds with huge nylon nets. However, we soon decided this might be a good community service sentence for those in violation of some of our newly proposed city ordinances: 1) Tourist suffering from “Bourbon Street Syndrome,” who walk blissfully down the middle of our streets failing to acknowledge the presence of motor vehicles; 2) Anyone caught using a toothpick in public; 3) Anyone driving a car with personalized plates.

The last suggestion was that we would commission an artist to paint a picture of the herons nesting at the park and present it to the Maestro Menotti. Then, of course, all the rest of the artsy crowd would want paintings of the herons as well. The tourists would soon follow suit, and next you would witness the artists removing the plastic owls and stumbling over their easels trying to turn out the most heron paintings. “Oh, what’s a little bird poo here and there?” they would say.

Hey, the environmentalists just came up with a good slogan today. It was on their pickets as they marched back and forth in front of our beloved park: “Plastic owls in Washington Park’s trees. Can plastic flamingos be far behind?”

It gives me chills, Muffie. All these weird looking people, all these tourists, all the notoriety. I don’t know what’s happening to our once charming and dignified city. Mark my words, in a few years, Geraldo will be here interviewing our new mayor, Chip Menotti.

Well, if you’re coming to see me, you had better make it in July. On second thought, don’t come at all; it will be too depressing for you. I’ll come to see you. I don’t care if you do live in Greenville.

Love,
Your old friend Buffie